Filed under: Cellphones

Google sets up Android support team in Taiwan originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well, after weeks of speculations and false alarms, it looks like T-Mobile’s officially saying the “Cupcake” Android update will hit the G1 sometime next month. That’s at least the word according to the T-Mo spokeperson Pocket-lint got hold of — who went out of his way to disclaim any connection with the upcoming launch of the HTC Magic. In any event, we’re hoping all this bake time has fixed some of those bugs and lag problems, but we’ll see in a few weeks.

[Via Talk Android]

Filed under: Cellphones

Cupcake Android update coming to G1 in April originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As expected, Google and LG have joined Apple, AT&T, and Verizon in settling their visual voicemail patent lawsuits with Klausner Technologies. The LG agreement is the more straightforward of the two, since it covers LG devices like the Versa directly, but things get more complicated with Google since it doesn’t actually make its own phones — Klausner wouldn’t say if the agreement shielded Android licensees from patent claims. We’re hoping Google’s attorneys got it all sorted out, but we’ll see who else is next on Klausner’s naughty list.

Read - Google
Read - LG

Filed under: Cellphones

Google, LG settle visual voicemail patent suits with Klausner originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Forknife the G1-controlled robot is back, and he’s brought friends

Filed under: Robots

Forknife the G1-controlled robot is back, and he’s brought friends originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Android Dev Phone 1 owners are pretty much expected to handle their own business when it comes to firmware updates, but those of you who like to kick it official take note: El Goog’s just released Android 1.1 for for its totally unlocked version of the G1. Most of the fixes are to do with POP3 accounts, and paid apps are now supported with a catch: you won’t be able to access any paid apps that use Android’s hilariously weak-ass copy protection features, because the ADP1 comes rooted out of the box and thus able to read / write the folder protected apps are stored in. So yeah, ADP1 owners now have access to paid apps that don’t have copy protection — we’re guessing that’s not a large number. Honestly, we don’t see the point of this: nothing’s ever going to stop piracy, and pissing off the people willing to buy $400 unlocked phones that don’t come with support doesn’t seem like the best way to build brand loyalty. Maybe you want to reconsider, guys?

Filed under: Cellphones

Google issues first Android Dev Phone 1 update, clarifies paid app situation originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Mar 2009 20:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Low light, candles in the corner — seriously folks, these shots are downright sultry. Optus’ HTC G1, er, Dream has been spotted and photographed in some random corner of the world, and while it basically looks like every other G1 you’ve ever seen in this hue, we’re absolutely certain that Australians in attendance are more than happy to have a look. You know where to head for the rest.

[Thanks, Tom]

Filed under: Cellphones

Optus’ HTC Dream spotted, photographed passionately originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Mar 2009 05:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We knew it was too good to be true. Don’t get us wrong, this new ZN300 is alright, but Motorola knows as well as we do that this isn’t the device people are looking for Schaumburg to produce right now; the company’s engineering talent isn’t in question, but what the people want is a superphone that proves there’s some design talent in the house, too. That’s why this supposed Touch ZINE HD got such a strong positive reaction the past few days that we’d all held out hope that there was a shred of reality to it, but unfortunately, Androidphones.com makes a very convincing argument that it’s almost certainly poppycock: looks like our boy Yury Cassini here took the back of a ZN5, combined it with the blanked front of a E8, and — voila! — there’s the device the Android-loving world is waiting for. In our last piece about this device, we implored to Moto that “if this isn’t real, can whatever it is you’re working on right this second and do precisely this instead,” and as we sit here with broken hearts and shattered dreams, the advice most definitely stands.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Motorola Touch ZINE HD is likely fake, hearts break around the world originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This is just too good. We knew VMware was working on this sort of thing, but watching it in action is almost too much magic for our fragile hearts to comprehend. VMware MVP lets you run multiple mobile operating systems on a mobile device as virtual machines. It works exactly as you might hope something like this to work — you can switch between operating systems on the fly, with full graphics acceleration and touchscreen interaction. You can even view both operating systems running simultaneously (in this case Windows CE 6 and Android), with info on just how much power each OS is swiping from your poor little mobile CPU. Performance isn’t perfect, of course, but as mobile hardware gets better and the desire for multiple mobile operating systems on the same device becomes unbearable, we see good things happening here. VMware expects to release the software in 2009, video is after the break.

Continue reading VMware MVP weds Windows CE and Android in unholy matrimony on dual-boot N800

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

VMware MVP weds Windows CE and Android in unholy matrimony on dual-boot N800 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Dev Phone 1 is good for many things that the stock G1 is not — hardcore geek street cred, developing Android apps, exercising your 1337est hacking skills — but one thing it’s not good for is buying and enjoying paid apps out of the Android Market. It seems Google has disabled access to paid apps from Dev Phone 1s, likely in response to the almost-immediate discovery by users that rooted devices had access to the hidden folders where the apps were stored, effectively making pirating them trivially easy. In all likelihood, the move doesn’t actually have anything to do with whether your phone is radio unlocked — it’s the rooting that’s the concern, and frankly, we’re a bit shocked at Google’s naivete at thinking these things were going to stay protected without at least a glancing effort at real DRM. You’d think that developers willing to shell out $400 for the device aren’t going to take too kindly to being locked out of the goods — which, ironically, could be their own — so let’s hope Google’s planning on cleaning up the shop and opening back up sooner rather than later.

Update: Get a load of this — we have an unlocked, rooted G1 on hand, and it still has access to paid apps. Same problem, essentially the same phone, but Google’s glossing it right over. If we had an ADP1, we’d be fuming right about now.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Google blocking paid Market apps from Dev Phone 1 users originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After Google had accidentally dropped the T-Bomb during its offline Gmail demo, we’d half expected (okay, hoped) that the version of the Sapphire passing through the FCC would rock T-Mobile’s 1700MHz AWS goodies for US 3G. Alas, it doesn’t — implying that there’ll be at least two versions of the phone launched around the world, which really doesn’t come as a surprise considering the G1 takes the same route. We figure this particular variant probably does 2100MHz HSDPA in addition to the usual array of GSM / EDGE bands, so rest easy, Vodafone customers, you’ll have a perfectly legal handset should you decide to cross the pond.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

HTC Magic stops by FCC for a quick ‘hello,’ no AWS in sight originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Android may be doing its best to exterminate Linux on the mobile platform, but a dedicated group of fans is doing its best to keep it alive and on the move. One of those is a G1 user by the handle ghostwalker who managed to get a full X-Windows environment running on his handset. Building on the already working Debian version for the G1, he installs LXDE (the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment) on top and then connects to that using the Android VNC viewer. The process sounds straightforward (as far as these things go) and is fully detailed at the read link, but as always don’t blame us if you break your poor Android’s shell — and heart.

[Via Hack A Day, thanks Neerhaj]

Filed under: Cellphones

X11 on G1 hack is for those who like a little extra OS in their OS originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Feb 2009 09:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’d already heard that ASUS was at least considering using Android on its Eee PC netbook, and seen it wrangled onto one unofficially (see above), but ASUS’s Samson Hu has now offered a few more details that indicate just how serious the company is about the XP/Linux alternative. Apparently, ASUS has already allocated a team of engineers to work on the Android-based netbook, which Hu says could be ready by the end of the year, although the company isn’t committing to actually releasing a product until it sees how things pan out. No further word on ASUS’s other Android experiments, unfortunately, but it seems safe to bet that ASUS is devoting even more attention to those, at least if its latest timeline is any indication.

[Via GadgetMix.com]

Filed under: Laptops

ASUS experimenting with Android-based netbook originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Looks like Google is officially in the app store game — Android Market now contains paid apps. We haven’t gotten the update on our G1 yet, but if you have RC33 it’s rolling out now — reboot and let us know what your first purchase is!

Filed under: Cellphones

Paid apps appear in Android Market originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Feb 2009 22:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Admit it, you want some Cupcake, but you’re afraid of ditching the physical keyboard altogether. Good news for those of you who’ve snagged an Android Dev Phone 1, because your wish may be our command. The guys at Make have the lowdown on how to flash Cupcake to the device and experience that on-screen keyboard in all its glory. The hacked OS certainly wasn’t ready for primetime, and that hotly-anticipated soft keyboard was still a little buggy — but there is some hope for using the phone with one hand. We’ll bet Google / T-Mobile keep this one in the oven a bit longer until it’s ready to take on the masses, but at least we’re seeing some fresh baked goodness on something other than the Magic. There’s video of the Macguyver’d OS in action after the break.

[Via Geek.com]

Continue reading Android Dev Phone 1 gets in on the Cupcake action early, deemed to be a little undercooked

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Android Dev Phone 1 gets in on the Cupcake action early, deemed to be a little undercooked originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Haier’s offerings are always an adventure, and this year at MWC they didn’t disappoint. They were showing off an interesting assortment of MIDs, confusingly dubbed “NetBooks,” including a mini-laptop of sorts (left) that falls somewhere in the middle. Unfortunately, we’re totally short on specs, release dates or other sorts of relevant informations, so what you see is pretty much what you get. On a similar note, Haier had two Android-based devices at the show, dubbed the G1 and the G2, along with a BlackBerry 8900 look-alike we didn’t see, and another phone that even the PR person wasn’t sure what it was. These two “Googlephones” (their word) were sadly out of battery when we went for a demo, but one of them bore more than a passing resemblance to the BlackBerry Storm, though it happens to be lighter, smaller and runs a new OS… maybe RIM can call up Haier for some pointers.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Laptops

Haier shows off mysterious “NetBooks,” Android phones originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So is Vodafone’s HTC Magic the same as T-Mobile’s G2? Could very well be, considering Google’s little slip-up during a demo of its offline Gmail support on mobile devices. What we have up there clearly ain’t a Voda logo, and if our knowledge of T-Mobile logos around the world is accurate, this isn’t a European T-Mobile logo, either — it’s straight-up Yankee. Would certainly make a ton of sense for this thing to shake out as the G2, and there’s no shortage of folks holding out for a keyboardless Android device ’round there… so your move, T-Mob.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Google’s offline Gmail demo reveals seemingly US-bound HTC Magic — is this the T-Mobile G2? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As with any trade show, flashy, high-end products have a tendency to steal the lion’s share of the spotlight at MWC — but the fact is, featurephones still outsell traditional smartphones by an order of magnitude. Companies like INQ are betting the farm on the belief that today’s ultra-connected generation of Twitter, Myspace, and Facebook users are ultimately going to pick fashionable, cheap, easy-to-use handsets over the complexity of an iPhone, G1, or Omnia. There’s something to be said for that — most people don’t know the model of their own phone, after all, and have no interest in learning how to download and install an app, let alone learn an entire mobile operating system. Plus, for the youngest members of this profitable group, there’s a lot of price sensitivity — smartphones are typically out of reach.

If startup Sonar has its way, that’s where its new platform comes in. The idea was to fundamentally rethink the way average consumers — you know, the ones who are plugged into three, four, or fourteen social networks and don’t know a G1 from a P1i — use a phone to communicate, and they’re ready to show off their efforts for the first time here at MWC. We had an opportunity to sit down with Sonar’s founders this week for a tour of the system, and we’re pretty stoked about what we saw. Read on.

Continue reading Sonar hopes to power social featurephones, we get a demo

Filed under: Cellphones

Sonar hopes to power social featurephones, we get a demo originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Feb 2009 13:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Okay, an Android RAZR would have been amazing, but sadly Motorola didn’t announce anything at all at MWC, so our dreams are on hold for the moment. In fact, day three was bereft of any major announcements, but there was some action: Telstra boss Sol Trujillo’s prototype HTC handset running Windows Mobile 6.5 was pickpocketed, we played with a few real Android prototypes, and we even saw Windows Mobile hacked into compatibility with a capacitive touchscreen. What else did we learn?

Continue reading MWC day three: return of the Jedi

Filed under: Cellphones

MWC day three: return of the Jedi originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Feb 2009 21:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you were thinking offline Gmail on your desktop was the greatest thing since sliced bread, prepare yourselves people. If an MWC keynote from Google’s VP of engineering, Vic Gundotra, is any indication, the same functionality might be coming soon to an iPhone / Android phone near you. Amongst other things, the souped up web app boasts an overhauled interface, supports labels, and of course, offline access. Despite our own hunch that Google’s just using black magic and voodoo to make this happen, Gundotra claims that it’s all made possible through HTML5 standards — AppCache being the biggie. This development certainly opens the doors to more offline-enabled web apps in the future — Docs, anyone?. Of course, we know Apple has a thing about people messing with its own apps, so it’s probably going to take some time / knee-breaking to get them to come around, but for some reason, we don’t think it’ll take as long with Android. There’s a demo video available after the break, and please, try to contain yourselves.

Continue reading Google demos offline Gmail for iPhone, Android at MWC

Filed under: Cellphones

Google demos offline Gmail for iPhone, Android at MWC originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Feb 2009 18:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Never mind the Magic — we’ve run across another Android device lurking in the midst at MWC, and if you squint, you might just see some HTC influence in this one, too. We’d heard General Mobile’s dual-SIM DSTL1 would launch here, granted, but given its reasonably high-end look and the fact that we’d only seen renders ahead of the show, you have to appreciate our skepticism. Of course, we’re delighted to be proven wrong in these sorts of situations, and we had a chance to play around with a DSTL1 today; WQVGA feels weak and there might be just a little too much Touch Diamond influence, but you have to respect the 5 megapixel AF cam, 4GB of internal storage plus microSD expansion, dual SIM slots, and on-board FM radio. Ultimately, the fact that this thing’ll only be available in two tri-band EDGE flavors kills the dream, but goodness, these guys are getting close, aren’t they? Follow the break for video!

Continue reading General Mobile’s DSTL1 Android phone eyes-on

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

General Mobile’s DSTL1 Android phone eyes-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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